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Castle in the Sky Voice Actor Fujio Tokita Passes Away at 81
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
Actor and voice actor Fujio Tokita passed away on Wednesday due to a brain hemorrhage. He was 81.
Tokita's close family will hold a funeral service, and his eldest son Seiji will serve as the chief mourner.
Tokita was born in Nagano prefecture in 1937, and in 1959 he formed a theatrical troupe with stage director Masakane Yonekura. He also appeared in dramas such as Bus Dōri Ura and Kyosen Maetake Gebageba 90-pun!. He also acted in films such as Narayama Bujikō, Yume, and Akira Kurosawa's Red Beard.
In anime, Tokita narrated the 1975 series Manga Nihon Mukashi Banashi alongside Etsuko Ichihara. The series ran until 1994. He voiced Uncle Pom in Studio Ghibli's Castle in the Sky, Kukuruk in Unico in the Island of Magic, the lighthouse keeper in Night on the Galactic Railroad, Kujira in Maegami-Taro, Sankichi in Zō no Inai Dōbutsuen, and the hermit of Kitayama in Murasaki Shikibu The Tale of Genji.
Tokita also hosted folktale live talk show events across Japan.
Image via The Yomiuri Shimbun
Sources: The Yomiuri Shimbun, Anime! Anime! (MoA)
